As the name suggests, the She-Mantis is a demon in the form of a praying mantis. But not always. It has the ability to either shapeshift or cast the illusion of humanity on itself so that its victims perceive it as a beautiful, sexy woman.

The She-Mantis preys on young, virgin boys. It lures them to its lair by using a pheromone that attracts the boy to her while she's in human form. It then performs a mating ritual, and just as copulation is finished, it bites the head from the boy and eats it.

A school friend of Giles' from Oxford first discovered the She-Mantis. Dr. Ferris Carlyle had advanced degrees in Entomology Mythology, or rather the relationship between bugs and fairy tales. He spent years transcribing a lost pre-Germanic language. What he discovered he kept to himself until several teenage boys were murdered in the Cotswolds. Then he went hunting for it. Before Carlyle went mad he claimed that there was a beast…a she-mantis…who preyed on the innocent. This type of creature, the Kleptes-Virgo, or, virgin-thief, has appeared in many cultural mythologies throughout the ages. Carlyle believed there was more to it then pure myth. But not many people believed him…especially considering he also claimed that his mother had been reincarnated as a Pekinese.

But when Buffy's science teacher turned up headless and a mysterious, beautiful woman named Natalie French appeared as her substitute teacher, Carlisle's stories started to ring of truth. Buffy believed that Ms. French was not human…especially after she witnessed her scare off a very nasty vampyre with a single look and then saw the teacher turn her neck 180 degrees…something common to the preying mantis. Then when Blayne Mall disappeared after supposedly going to help Ms. French on a science project, she knew she had to stop this beast.

But that wasn't the worst of it. It seems that her next victim was going to be…Xander! While the rest of the group hurriedly tried to find out as much information on the She-Mantis as they could…Buffy tried to warn Xander, but to no avail. Buffy discovered that preying mantis' were particularly afraid of bats so they got a tape of bat sonar and went in search of the dubious Ms. French. But what they found was the real Ms. French, a 90 year old substitute teacher whose identity the she-mantis had assumed. In desperation, Buffy found the vampyre who had been frightened of the She-Mantis and used him to track down her whereabouts. They arrived just in time to stop her from performing the mating ritual with Xander. Using a big knife, Buffy hacked the bug to pieces.